Programmed Alive
by dicAcielcunobiryxoeD
Summary: Now an adult, Shelby Barrera remembers her past from an alternate life while sitting on a plane waiting to get to Hawaii, and how she grew up being a runaway genetics experiment from an evil biotechnology lab at Area 51.
1. Chr 1

Chr. 1/46

It is one of those cold, crisp clear mornings when the reddish brown sun slowly and unwillingly wrestles with the sleepiness. I am sitting on a Boeing 787 about to take off on a 12 – hour flight to Hawaii. And, no, I am not flying all the way over there for the reason you think. I have to make it in time to my own presentation about the new Genenorg Software program. I used to hate science, when I was just three years old and my mom was ten years old, however now I am 25 years old in a new context and a new life…

I am not supposed to remember the alternate past – neither the reality nor that this past is fake. But I do. And where is he now, the one I love almost as much as life and what I stood for?

I guess I will start at the beginning, sharing my life with you, my imaginary audience. I will silently tell you everything (do not listen if you get depressed easily) – but first my fake past…

I was an only child. Both my parents passed away when I was four years old, and I lived, until I was 15, in an adoption center. Finally, a couple from New York adopted me, and I found two healthy parents and myself in a stepfamily complete with a stepsister. I was supposed to be happy, but I was missing the family I never had. I do not remember much about my "real" family (partly because I never knew these people) and partly because I was "too young" (no one believed my crazy stories, and thought that I was traumatized after my parents' deaths). All I remember now about my dad is that he had short curly black hair, and used to laugh a lot. All I remember about my mom is that she was a principal in a middle school, and a strict educator who would get furious if I did not hold my pen correctly. I remember the screeching car that tumbled down that cliff anyway – with all three of us inside. I remember thinking that it was the best roller coaster ride I had ever had.

My guess is that all three family members died in the car that fateful evening, and somehow I was confused as their child and was believed to have survived. I remember seeing that photograph, and the poor child looked strikingly like me. When I was transferred into my new life by the fourth dimension in which my real body could not stay, I had to have a past. So I took over the memories of this child… And when the vortex spit me out into the bushes in front of that adoption center, one of the few people standing there was a distant family friend. I instantly got integrated as one of the surviving members of the Barrera family (but all my previous memories stayed with me as well). The family friend could not take care of me because he was a drug addict, who struggled with his wife's breast cancer problem as well (yes, I hacked into one of the computers at the center, and luckily, never got caught).

The new family was preoccupied with their jobs, and adopted me to entertain Sydney on the weekends while they worked. Sydney, although she used to be an A+ student, was slipping socially, struggling with depression, and I even noticed her cutting her wrist once. She is now 27 years old, but used to be one of the girls who wears long straight hair that is dyed blond every week, and was one of those people who only think they are popular. Now, she almost disappeared from my parents' lives, being remembered mostly as one of these victims, a cute little girl remembered smiling in a cheerful, faded photograph. She became influenced by drugs only to get pulled downwards in life's unforgiving whirlpool. I am the only one who communicates with her, and she did fix her life to some degree. She went to a rehab center somewhere in California, and now works as a manager at a grocery store, several shifts a day, trying to pay the debt for her apartment.

I never really knew my stepparents, because they are almost always working. I keep thinking that this is also an addiction to some degree. They have a lot of money, a great house, and could take a day off at any time. My stepfather works at a big company called Nanopoint. Nancy will not tell anyone where she works, but she probably works in the government, most likely the CIA, looking at her behavior when she is around, and her ability to talk so that no one else will hear. I used to have to run from the CIA, but they are not looking for me anymore, not being controlled by Them.

I grew up okay; I found it easy to get good grades since I was taught everything – kindergarten through college – in the first ten years of my real life, except biology. But that was not necessary, because I was born knowing more than most scientists, and however well I tried to conceal this, I think they knew. I quickly learned the art of hacking into computers as well, and then discovered I could speak in yet another language besides Chinese, Spanish, and English. This was what they called the "genetic code." While I found it to be cool to be able to command cells to die, grow into tumors, and know the functions of all the chemicals inside them (but not the names), my mother told me to use this language as rarely as possible, never giving me a reason for this.

Both my real mom and I were basically living allusions to the only halfway – shaded – in world of life, part of which were meanings which could be seen by the naked eye, with the other meanings having to be deducted. While my name here is Shelby Barrera, it used to be Diane Okazaki. My mother's was Riana. Riana Okazaki. I was not born from her, however the end result was the same as if I was naturally born. This is because she was in charge of creating all of the genetic material normally inherited from a mother, including the *****mtDNA (she copied her own) and some parts of my **satDNA. It might seem strange to you, my dear imaginary audience – a seven year old able to type someone else's DNA into a computer, and do this so that it works. Well, almost. Both times, my mother's and my own genetically engineered blastulas mutated. What was strange is that all the cells in the blastula mutated the same exact way, starting from the mtDNA and continuing to the nuclei.

I remember the first time I stepped outside. The entire right wing of the lab was asleep, except for the workaholics, of course. But they did not pay attention to anything besides their work. I managed to make a key out of a paperclip for the first door, and I hacked in through the code on the keypad of the second door. Outside the main building was a dark abyss, which both scared and intrigued me. The wind seemed to come out of nowhere, as I opened that door. As some sort of a shower drenched me, falling out of a ceiling that was so far away and so big that I could not see it completely, I got confused as to how this could happen. A glowing hemisphere illuminated the giant room, and I was standing on plants, that were growing right out of the floor! Some of the plants near me were very big and had thorns on them, however after being prickled a couple of times, I managed to read the genome of one of them. It was _Aloe vera_, the same plant that was growing out of a green pot in the dining room. I observed that the plants covering the floor ended suddenly, a few inches beyond the giant barbed wire fence, and were replaced by sand…

Of course, now I know that what I had walked into was not a giant room. It was the Arizona desert, area 51, on a very un-rare occasion when the grass sprinklers came on. It is believed that at the other end, (if you continue north from the main entrance of the laboratory) you will encounter an alien crash – landing site. However, I went there, and now I can tell that there is no alien crash – landing site there. It is a truly genius trick that the laboratory at area 51 employed. I decided to go outside often, but I was always careful not to catch a cold or let anyone know that I was missing. I noticed that the light source kept changing shape, and deducted from previous knowledge, that it was the moon.

Great. The plane is delayed. I have a bad feeling about this, especially after learning of the 9/11 events. The security is now really good, though, thanks to the ones that tried to carry on bombs in their shoes, and to make them on the plane from different chemicals, for an attempt to light it later with a match in the tiny restroom. Even though there is less of a chance for terrorists to attack this aircraft right now, they have accomplished something anyway. Now people are horrified, and the security lines have been stricter than ever, making thousands uncomfortable and scared as they take off their sweaty shoes and step onto the gray floor already bearing the sweat of others before them.

I proceed to call the company, telling them I will be late due to the delay and saying that I will get to the meeting as soon as possible. I have no idea why it is held in Hawaii during the spring vacation time, when everyone tend to go to Hawaii or some other warm place, unable to wait any longer for a summer.

So, let's continue. I never went beyond the barbed wire fence. That is until I found that I could move from one place to another by visualizing myself in another place with immense concentration and closing my eyes (if I did not, the flash of space would give me terrible eye pains, mostly because a human brain is not adapted to such events). I discovered this after a very suspicious looking man approached me with what looked like a gun hidden behind his back. I started backing away towards the wall, probably what a normal six year old would do as well, because I had never been taught how to behave when my safety is concerned, and relied solely on the guard. The man drew a knife out from behind his back, and walked towards me. At this moment I wished that I would suddenly appear on the other side of the barbed wire fence, outside the right wing of the lab where I currently was. As the knife touched the left side of my throat, I felt a slight dizziness; the knife sliced all the way through my neck like it was not there, and I saw a blindingly bright white screen and fainted.

When I woke up, I was lying on the ground on the other side of the fence. My neck hurt, and when I felt it with my hand, I found that the knife only cut halfway, instead of all the way across. I felt sharp pains in my eyes as well, and my eyesight was badly damaged. After taking five minutes to wonder how the hell I got here, how the hell did I survive, and how the hell do I sneak back in, I tried to imagine I was back in the laboratory building, room 304, next to the wall. It did not work, so I guessed that the man mistakenly assumed me dead and left what remained of me here. I was somewhat hidden away from the people in the laboratory, so that they did not spot me soon, and the man could make his escape. I had to walk all the way around, only to come to a conclusion that the fence circled the whole building. I had to call for help somehow. Despite being afraid that the strange man will come back, I screamed for help, immediately feeling the excruciating pain in my neck.

Luckily, one of the guards outside noticed me, and I expected to be let back in, but the fat woman working on this shift did not recognize me. I was instantly asked millions of questions, most notably, "How did you find this place?" "Where are your parents?" "Where are you from?" followed by "You are not supposed to be here!" I did not have time to answer until her storm of questions had passed, and my answers were just helpless stutters, interrupted by pain. I had no idea where exactly the laboratory was located or whether I had any parents!

At this moment, I decided to try to move from place to place again. I did not believe that the man would actually get a half – dead person past the guard, so it had to be my wish of moving beyond the fence come true. I closed my eyes and almost saw the freshly painted wall in room 304. Then, I felt the dizziness again. I heard the woman scream, then her scream faded away, and I opened my eyes to find myself back in the right wing of the laboratory.

I walked over to the end of the wing, still fearing another attack, and tried to tell the whole story to one of the scientists there. Soon the entire room was listening, but telling me to stop talking, because I would irritate the bloody gash on my neck even further. Dr. Kristen Steele asked me whether I am dizzy and I told her that I am. This was when I saw the room go completely dark, and lost consciousness for the second time.

The plane has finally started to move. I notice that a group of students, apparently from a middle school, were also in attendance on the plane. They are talking loudly, in their little groups, and still switching places to sit next to their friends. The smallest girl in the group, with light brown hair, started wailing loudly, and shaking with violent sobs. I realized that it was because her friend refused to sit next to her. I feel sorry for the little girl, yet I know that her story is only still unfolding.

The plane is picking up speed and is moving upward so fast that the middle school group screams. I have that typical sinking feeling one will experience during a rapid change in pressure. I will now take a nap, once the plane evens out, and continue the story of my life in about half an hour, when I wake up.

A woman's voice asks me something about purchasing a meal. I slowly open my eyes and realize that about three hours have passed. I say "no thanks," mostly because staying hungry for now will help fend off jet lag. I remember that I did not always have to sleep to get more energy. Back when I was Diane, I could stay awake nineteen hours each day. I could also move from point A to point B in a way that in my current life, I cannot (Otherwise, I would have skipped the entire plane experience and arrived in Hawaii on time). My dear imaginary audience, how would you feel if you lived a life that was almost magical, and then you had to suddenly change to the life of an average person? I want to go back, and this is part of the reason I am going through the stories from my life with you… But then I know there is a reason that my life was changed.

Most of my life was uneventful after the knife incident. I never heard of or met the man who did this to me, but since then I felt determined to learn why people would do something like this. I started to frequently hack into computers and learn about current events of the outside world, and the knowledge rushed into my unprepared mind. I found out that no one knew that genetically engineered humans existed, and people generally thought that the only thing current technology could achieve was to clone animals, like Dolly the sheep (whose remains are preserved in a museum as though the cloned sheep was the greatest achievement to date). I could see why someone would try to kill me: what if I destroy the world or something, and it just sounds wrong to go and program a human being via a computer….

I created a Yahoo mail account and used it to save a copy of the program that I made to help me look for files. I did not really make the actual program, but rather adjusted the Windows search option to hack into any Internet file, or any computer online at the time, by searching for backdoors. For fun, I made the program look different and display all of the words in genetic code, and found it to be a good thing, since only the top scientists and I could use the searcher. I added a protection of three passwords in genetic code at startup, and named the file containing the program "ATC," as in "Air Traffic Control" and also one of the "stop" codons as in before transcription. This would later prove useful, especially when I went back to retrieve my own files.

The fun started when they started to train me for warfare, as a bio – engineered weapon. I was taught something of a cross between kickboxing and karate, as well as how to use ordinary household items as weapons. My favorite attack was probably taking three chopsticks and throwing them so they spin around and then split off to hit the target. Chopsticks have a dull point, so all they can do is scare a person. A couple of darts could make it possible to pin the person to a wall, by the sleeves of their clothing, and stop them from whatever that was I didn't want them to be doing. My preferred defense is to grab the opponent's arm and quickly move it, so the arm gets dislocated and they can't put up much of a fight anymore. As you can see, I do not really like to hurt people, since my "favorites" don't torture anyone much. A doctor or another person present in the room at the time (if there is one) could put a dislocated arm back into place. A dart, if thrown correctly, will not hit any major blood vessels, but both techniques will slow down/stop an attacker or enemy. These are hard to learn, and I would have some scars to show this, except they all heal without a trace.

I thought of being a weapon as stupid and decided to run away, to see the world and try to have a normal life like everyone else I have read or heard about. I slit my wrist one night, let enough blood escape onto the floor, and then sealed it so the cut could heal. I then left some broken chairs, ripped up clothes, and other stuff, including a gun I stole from some police officer (I made sure he reported that _before_ he got blamed for the "attack" on me). I saw to it that what I was leaving behind looked like a crime scene, and then I left, however I overlooked my necklace. The necklace that I wore from day one of my life, looked like a regular necklace, with a silver chain and the small pendant hanging off of it, however, it had my ID on the other side, and it contained a tracing device, a shocking device, (which sent about 1,000 volts of electricity down my spine when I moved in space then back during the attack, and this was why I passed out twice) and a tiny voice recorder, with a lot of memory. I could not take the tracer/voice recorder/control device off or disable it without a huge electrical shock going off, the size of which would probably leave me in a permanent coma.

I knew that if I were to move in space, away from here, I had to have seen my final destination. This is why I looked up Chicago, and for some unknown reason settled on Olive Park. This is a large, grass – covered area with huge paved circles and large paved roads in between. It is placed neatly on a semi—island surrounded by the blue—green waters of Lake Michigan on all the sides, except the small area where it connected to the rest of Chicago. If you walk a little further into Chicago, you will encounter several intertwined large streets, all bearing the name North Lake Shore Drive. But, I am getting carried away, my dear imaginary audience… I landed in the patch of trees and brush, in the middle of Olive Park. A large building was right in front of me, instead of one of the gray "olives." I found out, that first of all, it would have been a good idea to remember to put on warm clothing, because although it was spring, the cold wind made it feel like winter. Next, I located the entrance to the building, which was on the other side of it, to my left. The building was closed, so I decided to walk in the opposite direction, towards the multiple North Lake Shore Drives.

I do not know why I chose this location… Maybe it was because of the historical significance. Olive Park was dedicated to and named after Milton Lee Olive III, first African American to receive the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, for his bravery. He sacrificed his life to save others, using himself to stop the effects of an enemy – launched grenade.

For a month, I lived in Olive Park. This, of course, involved stealing food from nearby stores and sleeping on a wooden bench, sometimes being drenched by the rain or nearly frozen to death, depending on the weather. Despite these problems, I preferred living here and being free to being trained to be a weapon in Area 51. My favorite place was on the edge of the park, next to the view of the lake and the skyline of the tall buildings. When the sun set, the lake shone in very bright colors, and when it became completely dark, I could see the dots of light on the closest buildings. While my living status/condition was set as "homeless," I thought about my life, what I have learned from hacking into the main lab computer, and made the difficult decision that it is better off if the researchers and scientists that made my existence a barely – known reality never again worked on the project. I realized that even the government does not want to really know what is happening and chooses to deny that anything is going on at Area 51 at all.

I knew that they have ways of finding out my location and they would have gotten me back into the lab, however I remembered, and short – circuited the necklace by diving into the lake (at night, so there are no swimmers or divers nearby) and hitting it with a rock. I hoped to die and never be found, but I ended up in a hospital, because although I got an immense dose of electricity it still was not enough to kill me, and someone saw my "dead" body floating in the lake in the morning. I also had a bracelet, which I managed to take off and leave in the lake (later on I figured out that was just my I.D). I guessed that if I got rid of/destroyed everything I had but my clothing they couldn't find me.

I left the hospital after I woke up, every step being painful, and asked random people what the location of Olive Park was. Luckily it was nearby, people told me where to go, and some asked me where my parents are. I said nothing in return, and even ran away if the situation required that. Due to my ability to communicate with my cells, I healed quickly, after a week.

That was when I thought about a suicide plan for the second time. The plan was this: I find a poisonous plant and eat it, and if that does not work, I will steal pain reliever medication from a grocery store and take all of it. The plan never got to the second step, because I managed to find a mysterious poisonous bush with green berries, finding that it is poisonous to humans (or something similar to a human, like me) by reading its genome. For dinner, I had a mouthful of the sour green berries, and after approximately half an hour, I felt the results. My stomach and my head hurt, I obtained a fever, and then everything around me vanished…

* - Mitochondrial DNA – DNA found in mitochondria, inherited from the mother's side of the family. Mitochondria are membrane-enclosed organelles, which produce most of the cell's chemical energy in the form of molecules of ATP.

** - Satellite DNA – highly repetitive, and produces different frequencies of nucleotides than regular DNA. It is used for identifying people, because it varies greatly between individuals.


	2. Chr 2

Chr. 2/46

I opened my eyes in a hospital bed again, but in addition to finding out my plan failed, medication was injected into my left arm, and that the room also looked like a complex laboratory, I saw that it is not the laboratory at Area 51. I was somewhere else. Then I noticed that there were people in the room as well, but was unable to speak or lift my head to see the room better. A voice fades away, as I closed my eyes again.

I hear a voice again and I wake up to find a woman in a long white coat staring at me with the look that told me she did not expect me to ever wake up. I asked her "Where am I?" and she told me that I will be okay. I asked the question again and told her that I knew this was not a hospital. She said that I should relax and get some more rest, smiled, and walked away. I sat up in the bed and looked up at the familiar black screen that showed my heart rate, showed that I was still breathing, and calmed me down with the soft, regular beeping noise. Almost my entire first life I woke up either to the beeping noise or to the sound of the cars near the Olive Park. I noticed that I was wearing the same stolen clothes from some store called Gap.

A short, bald man wearing a similar white coat entered the room and watched in shock as I ripped out the IV from my left arm. I knew that if I did not hold the spot on my arm where the IV was, blood would squirt out of my arm and leave more evidence that I was here, so I removed the IV carefully, and did not expect such a strong reaction from the man in the white coat. I said I will be okay without the medication, and stood up, despite the slight dizziness. The man called for someone called Marie, probably the woman I saw earlier, and told me that he had to ask me some questions. I knew what they were, but decided to stay, lie to most of them, and hopefully figure out what this place is. The man proceeded to ask me where I was from, where my parents are, what their names are, what my name is, and told me to call him Dr. Sylvester. I told him my name was Amanda, I live near Olive Park, *my dad is James Watson (a name I happened to overhear at Area 51), and my mom left when I was a little girl. Dr. Sylvester began to laugh, then became serious again. "Your father is James Watson? Now, you have to tell me the truth. Where are your parents, Amanda, and how can I contact them?" I refused to give him any more information, thinking I will be kept here, or at least with a roof over my head, until they can return me to my parents. I can escape to Olive Park anyway, if the situation called for this.

The nurse came in and reattached the IV to my left arm, tied my hands so I could not move them, and then left again. I looked around and found one more bed, empty, next to me. Maybe this was a hospital… but not like the pictures I saw on the Worldwide Web. Maybe it is a mental facility? Fifteen minutes later the door opened, as I was ripping the IV out of my arm again, having untied my hands, and someone walked into the room. "Hi. Sorry. I did not know anyone was here."

The guy, about 17 years old, looked at me more closely, and then quickly backed off towards the door, with a weird expression on his face. I asked, "What is wrong? Why are you scared?" and the guy said, "You are the person from my nightmares. You killed me." I replied, "I am not in a good enough condition to be a nightmare" I held up the IV. "Maybe if they stick twenty more wires into my arm, then I will look scary enough that someone dies. I don't know." The boy said "But you ripped out the IV…" He quickly dashed to a desk near the second bed and retrieved a textbook. Trigonometry.

"Why are you here?"

"I tried to commit suicide by poison" I said.

Silence.

"You know, they would not put you here for… What poisoning did you survive?" asked the boy. I described the plant I found. "I don't know what it's called." The 17 year old apparently knew, and ran to the door with a weird expression on his face. "What _are_ you? Any normal person would die from this amount of poison!" After another short silence, the boy said, "I guess I know, then, why you're here".

I asked, "Why are you here then? Where are we?" He looked at the textbook and said that he is not supposed to tell me what this place is, but he helps his father with some of the research here. Then he left.

I looked around again, and noticed a backpack near the desk. I got up and looked through the large blue backpack. There were three other textbooks – AP Biology, Honors Physics for College Prep, and a kindergartenish – looking History book. I guessed this was for a CP2 Class. Why does such a bright kid take CP2 History? There was also a crumpled report card, belonging to an Erwin Sylvester. Biology – A, Study Hall – Pass, Physics – A-, Trigonometry B+, English – A, Keyboarding – A, Art Studio 2 – C, History – F. Below the chart with the grades, there was a line which I did not quite understand – "Career GPA – 3.2", and below that was a signature "Niv Sylvester" with a short handwritten note: "My child needs to have extra help with History. He may not be an average student, due to his obsession with math and genetics, and I thank you for being patient with him. I don't see how it could happen, that he cannot get an "A" in a CP2 History class, when he is able to get a perfect grade in AP Bio.

"Not an average student with his obsession with math and genetics"? I thought that this was interesting. I re – crumpled the report card and turned my attention to the red binder, which was in the other section of the backpack. There were a bunch of "handouts" relevant to the subjects listed on the report card, and none of them looked that interesting, aside from many of them saying "Important handout. Don't lose". However, the piece of paper with the schedule ( I guessed it was for the classes) drew my attention. On the other side of the bright pink sheet of paper was a diagram in the shape of multiple concentric circles, hastily sketched in blue ink. There were many lines drawn outward from the center of the circles, with a letter written in each space between these lines. I tried to read them. "A, U, G, C, C, U, U, A, G, G, C…" the letters continued all the way around the circle, as well as the larger circles. I tried to make sense of this data, and then realized that this was a table of the genetic code. From what the World Wide Web taught me, this was studied in such detail only in college classes. But the report card and the textbooks obviously belonged to a high school – Chicago High School.

After rummaging further through the backpack, I found one red pen, three pencils without erasers, one without lead on its tip and half of a green eraser on its other end, five pieces of lead from the tips of these gray pencils, one blue piece of lead from a pencil that wasn't there, one graphing calculator, two late passes to History, and a broken Geiger counter. What was the Geiger counter doing in a high school student's backpack? Footsteps resounded from the hallway, and I quickly put all the stuff back into the backpack the way it was. As the door started opening, I hid under the bed. I heard Dr. Sylvester's voice. "What do you mean, she isn't here? How did she manage to escape under the influence of sedatives, with her hands tied, and a guard posted outside the door?" The other voice was Marie's. "Amanda shouldn't even be alive right now, with the poison she ingested. The plant she ate should have killed a 30 – year old male, never mind a 12 – year old girl." Both people walked around the room for a while, then left. Now I was facing a choice. I was still in Chicago; otherwise the boy I saw earlier couldn't be going to Chicago High School. Dr. Sylvester and the nurse believed that my name was Amanda, and that I ran away from my parents. I could stay and try to figure out what this place is, or I could escape, and terminate myself, to make sure the experiment at Area 51 couldn't go on.

I decided to wait for the person outside the door to leave, and listened until I heard another set of footsteps approaching the room I was in, then footsteps walking away, as two people were talking in rapidly fading, hushed voices. When I could no longer hear the footsteps, I crawled out from under the bed and stepped cautiously outside the room. There was a long, narrow hallway, extending in both directions from the doorway I was standing in. The lights were off; save for the one that flickered on when I opened the door. I could not see an entrance nor an exit, as the ends of the hallway faded into darkness. I decided to walk to my left, away from where the footsteps went, and found that while I walked, the lights behind me shut off, one by one, and the lights ahead came on, one by one. While I was staring at the lights, I noticed a camera near the ceiling, on my left. I kept walking for at least five minutes, and then decided to enter one of the rooms, the doors of which lined both sides of the hallway. Behind the door was a smaller hallway, leading to one other door.

The bright white light blinded me as I opened the second door. A harsh, cold wind whistling by let me know that this was the exit from the building. I stood there for a while, contemplating what to do next, and then heard someone's voice. I closed the door, rushing back into the building and dashed behind another door. I couldn't leave yet, as I felt I had to unravel the mystery of the building, from the over-the-top security to the feeling this building was shrouded in uttermost secrecy. The room behind this door contained rows and rows of lab benches, containing genome sequencers, lots of beakers, reagents, and other lab equipment. No one was there, and only one genome sequencer was working, the bright screen of the computer attached to it showing rows of multicolored lines. I remembered how to read these lines, but before I sat down on a chair beside the computer, I decided to put on a lab coat, just in case the person with the loud, booming voice chooses to enter the lab.

As I adjusted the screen to show the nucleotide sequence instead of the lines, the door to the lab opened.

"Hi! You're still working? Usually only Marie works here that late." The person who entered was a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a lab coat with colorful drawings and designs drawn on the fabric. As I looked closer, I realized that the designs were carefully embroidered on the lab coat. "Where did you get such a pretty lab coat?" I asked. The genome sequencer finished working. Uh – oh. If the Marie who was working at this station was the woman looking for the missing patient, I am in trouble, and I have nowhere to go. Meanwhile, the woman in the fancy lab coat replied to my careless question; "You are new here, I see. This is interesting. You must have quite an outstanding resume, because this is supposed to be a private research company, almost bordering on secret. I embroidered the lab coat myself. It's my favorite hobby, outside of this lab." So I was right. There is more to this story. I then asked: "So everyone else here knows you like embroidering?" The woman looked at me, like she had trouble understanding me. "Everyone here knows that I wear this lab coat all the time. What's your name?" I decided not to lie again. "My name is Diane." The woman in the lab coat smiled, and said: "I'm Sanaa Farai. It's nice to meet you. It's nice to meet someone new once in a while." The door to the lab opened again. This time my worst fears were confirmed. Marie walked in, but did not notice me right away, as I pretended to be analyzing the output from the genome sequencer. "Hi, Sanaa, have you seen a little girl wandering nearby? She says her name is Amanda, and she is about twelve years old." Sanaa laughed and replied, obviously thinking this was a joke: No, I haven't seen a little girl. However, it seems you have a competitor for leaving work the latest." To my uttermost horror she pointed in my direction.

At first, Marie didn't recognize me. She simply said: "Why are you using this genome sequencer? It was sequencing something for my research." Then: "Amanda, get away from it immediately! This is a piece of sensitive and very expensive lab equipment!" Her face went white, when she saw that I knew what I was doing. "Alu repeats in C. Elegans? You are trying to figure out what these particular ones do, so you used a viral vector to insert human Alusequences into C. Elegans! How clever!" As I said this, I stepped back. As Sanaa saw how young I was, her face also showed a considerable amount of confusion and surprise. "So, is she working in this lab or not? How did she get in here? She told me that her name was Diane."

"Diane, huh?"

As the two scientists were talking, I turned my head to face whoever was speaking.

"So, how does she know that I was studying Alu sequences? She could only have known if she ran a search using the sequence. There is no way a twelve year old knows how to do that." Sanaa seemed to still be in a state of confusion.

I simply read what the genome sequencer had spit out. She was right; I didn't search for homologous sequences on the Internet. I should have, to seem more like a normal human.

"I don't know. She was taken to a local hospital, having survived two suicide attempts. The first one was electrocution. The device used as the source of electricity was never found. The second attempt was suicide by poison. Both should have killed her in an instant, however, here she is, analyzing the output from a genome sequencer, like nothing ever happened."

So they knew.

"She was transferred so you could study how she survived? Have you tried locating her parents yet?"

"There were no missing children reported anywhere near Chicago, who match her description. We don't even know her real name"

Sanaa decided to calmly ask me a question, as I turned to look at her once more, in a state of extreme panic. "How did you get here? What's your real name? How do you know so much about the sequencers?"

"It's useless. She won't tell you the truth."

I should have stuck to my old story.

I replied, "My real name is Diane. I got here by walking down the hallway, after your "guard" abandoned his post. It didn't take much to figure out what I was looking at on the genome sequencer. I simply switched the display to show the nucleotide sequence instead of the colorful lines, and it spelled out an Alu sequence for me, and then a gene that could only have belonged to a nematode. I didn't know that it was from C. Elegans, but since the run was labeled "C. Elegans" I thought that this was the name of the worm you were studying." Both Marie and Sanaa seemed to be listening to what I had to say, so I also asked them why the sequencer displayed lines instead of the sequence at first. They didn't say anything for a while.

Fifteen minutes later, I found myself in the room I was in earlier, while Dr. Sylvester, Sanaa, and the others were talking outside the door, probably debating what to do next. As the long conversation outside went on, I noted that the backpack was gone. From the conversation, I realized that it was 6 A.M. on a Tuesday morning, and the boy must have left for school. I really enjoyed hearing the confused voices outside the door; however, I definitely needed to find a way out of here. If the people outside knew about my suicide attempts, then it couldn't be long before I would be returned to Area 51.

After what seemed like an hour an hour of heated debate outside the door, Sanaa entered the room. She pulled up a chair to the bed I was sitting on the edge of and pulled out the little table they use to put food or medicine for the sick people to be able to reach it. They probably thought that I would trust her more if she would talk to me. She was no longer wearing her fancy lab coat. She was wearing a pink – terribly bright pink – blouse, with an open long sleeved purple semi – transparent shirt on top of the blouse, and black jeans. I thought that she should be freezing to death right now, because the air conditioner was running full strength. I had zipped up my gray sweatshirt and wished that they hadn't confiscated my coat. They were probably trying to locate something that would identify me. They will probably fail, but for all I knew they could even have connections to Area 51. Sanaa produced a lined piece of paper with neat, but still hastily (judging by the spaces between the words) scrawled notes. I uncrossed my arms, slouched, and looked Sanaa in the face, attempting to assume the pose of a nonviolent, cooperative teenager, but then I had to look back down at the little table with the paper. It was light blue. Never in my life have I seen a blue lined piece of paper that hasn't been ripped out from a notepad by a nerdy scientist.

I looked back at Sanaa, as she asked me, "Where do you live?" "Nowhere for now. I am homeless". Sanaa wrote something on the piece of paper. I could tell she wasn't experienced at this, as she crossed her writing out and wrote something of the same length a few lines below. "Why are you homeless?" Some questions could remain unanswered. "I ran away from my parents". I found myself looking sideways, with my arms folded on my knees, and quickly resumed my previous position. Sanaa didn't notice and continued with the interrogation, writing down key points on the piece of paper. "Have you ever been in a lab before?" "Once, on a school field trip." "What school do you go to?" "I used to go to Hailston High, but as I said, I ran away"

I lied. She asked me a bunch of similar questions, including why I can read the output from genome sequencers, to which I answered, "I guessed."

When she finished, Sanaa picked up the extensively written on piece of paper and left the room. The guard locked the room and I stayed in the room for an indefinite, but seemingly long, period of time. Finally I heard the room being unlocked and Erwin walked in, dropped his backpack next to the desk, and sat down on the other bed. "You're still here? I thought they have gotten your genome sequence or whatever, and handed you off to somewhere else."

"No, not yet."

"We haven't officially met yet, and since you're still here, I at least deserve to know the name of the person in my nightmare. My own name is Erwin Sylvester. What is yours?"

"My name is Amanda." I had suspicions about him, so I decided to continue the mystery around what my name was, going. My suspicions were confirmed by what he said next.

"You are looking away and both your legs and arms are crossed. This is a sign that you are hiding something. What is your real name?"

I knew he wasn't a normal kid himself.

"Amanda."

"I won't tell anyone," Erwin said in a hushed tone. "You can trust me."

For some reason I had a feeling I could, even though Erwin seemed even more mysterious than the lab we were in.

"Diane."

Pause.

"Diane Okazaki."

Erwin laughed. "And I thought my name was weird."

I probably looked annoyed at what he said, because Erwin commented, "What are you going to do, stab me with a replication fork?"

"A replication fork?"

"Don't play dumb." Marie walked into the room. "You even know how to operate a genome sequencer. Don't tell me you don't know what a replication fork is!"

Erwin smiled. "A genome sequencer, huh? It would be even funnier if you could sequence genomes, Amanda." I felt a chill running down my spine. I felt I couldn't completely be sure the guy didn't know where I was from, and what I was accidentally reprogrammed to be able to do. At least he called me Amanda.

Marie turned to Erwin. "Is that your way of flirting with girls? No wonder you didn't have a date to the senior prom!"

I hoped that was all it was.

Erwin continued talking.

"I heard that you read what the genome sequencer spit out and you already knew what they were studying in Lab A103. Is that true?"

"Erwin, this is not your business. Come on, Amanda D. Watson. We're going somewhere else.

"Amanda D. Watson? You're –" Erwin stopped himself from saying anything else.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Somewhere where we can talk to you … more efficiently."

I didn't like that. I heard somewhere that to "talk efficiently" meant to interrogate someone violently, and Marie had a stern look on her face. I didn't want to be interrogated violently. I grabbed Erwin by the sleeve of his shirt and I started yelling, "I don't want to talk more efficiently! I don't want to talk more efficiently! I speak efficiently enough as it is!" Marie tried to pull me away from Erwin and Erwin tried to pull the sleeve of his shirt away from me, but I refused to ease my grip on what might have been my only chance to avoid the interrogation.

"Amanda, you need to come with me to the other room. Let go of his shirt and follow me to the other room." Marie sounded pissed off.

"I don't want to talk efficiently!" My hand twitched as I angrily said this and Erwin ran to the back of the room, as Marie dragged me out of the room and down the hallway.

I was sat down behind a desk, and Marie sat at the other end. She took a thick gray folder out of the briefcase that was already sitting on top of the desk, opened it up somewhere to the middle, and then looked up from the papers in the folder, at my face, with a cold stare that made me flinch. I was never in my life violently interrogated, I couldn't defend myself as the people in this building would throw me out or even kill me (if they would resort to such measures as violent interrogation), and I was horror-stricken by what I remembered about violent interrogation from what I was taught by Area 51.

I decided to do what I was taught. Marie began her speech, in a strict and somewhat mean tone.

"As you probably already figured out, you are here because of an unusual set of circumstances relating to your prior suicide attempts, as reported by the hospitals in which you were a patient, and extensive scientific knowledge, as reported by two of the people working at this building. How did you survive these suicide attempts, and under which circumstances did you acquire such a deep understanding of the scientific concepts you have demonstrated the knowledge of?"

I decided to play dumb. "Huh?"

"I know you understand what I'm saying as well as the implications of what I'm saying. Answer the question."

"Look, I am not taking any drugs or anything, I just felt a little depressed since I ran away and I probably won't see my family again. My parents would beat me."

An angry vein pulsed on Marie's forehead. She calmly said, "If you don't answer the questions, the liquid from this syringe will be injected into your arm, and you will feel the worst pain ever, starting at your arm. Once it hits your brain, you will feel disoriented, extremely nauseous, and five minutes later, you will wish you were dead all over again."

Fear got the best of me. I couldn't help but burst out crying. "Why are you doing this to me? *Sob* Why can't I just be left alone? *****Sob*** **Alone? Alone, alone, alone…."

Marie seemed somewhat discombobulated by my response, but then she picked up the syringe again, and emptied its contents into my arm. I felt a sharp pain traveling slowly up my arm, with a sting worse than that of a thousand fire ants, and a strong, dull ache left after the initial wave. I stopped crying and focused all the relevant proteins in my body to try to identify the bothersome chemical, which caused the pain. An antibody seemed to be able to bind and disable the molecule, so I told the cells further upstream my arm to make more of the antibody. Soon thereafter the wave of pain came to a halt and then stopped, leaving the affected portion of my arm with light, dull pain.

I sat in the chair, rocking back and forth, and pretending I was still in pain. This couldn't be all that Marie had planned for me, I thought, as Marie told me quietly, "You seem to be able to tolerate pain well, but you only have five minutes until the stuff in the syringe reaches your brain, so you better start talking. By the way, how old are you, really?"

* James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA.


End file.
